NASCARVan Alst Suffers Fractured Vertebrae in Talladega Crash

Van Alst Suffers Fractured Vertebrae in Talladega Crash

By Seth Eggert, Associate Editor

A late-race crash in Saturday’s Loves RV Stop 250 left journeyman driver Greg van Alst with a fractured vertebrae.

Van Alst’s No. 20 CB Fabricating Chevrolet Silverado was in the middle of the pack when contact between Matt Crafton and Nick Sanchez sparked ‘the big one.’ In the chaos of the melee, the Young’s Motorsports truck was sent head-on into the outside wall in the Tri-Oval. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series machine hit the wall with such force that all four tires came off the ground.

Greg van alst suffered a fractured vertebrae in a late-race nascar craftsman truck series crash at talladega superspeedway.
Greg Van Alst makes hard impact with the outside wall during the Love’s RV Stop 250 at Talladega. (Photo: Christian Koelle/Kickin’ the Tires)

The multi-truck left forced series officials to red flag the race for the clean-up and to attend to the drivers. The ARCA Menards Series winner was transported to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, AL for further evaluation. On Sunday morning Van Alst revealed through his Twitter account that he suffered a fractured vertebrae in the crash.

“Greg was transported to UAB Hosp following the wreck at Talladega, where he was diagnosed with a fractured vertebrae,” Van Alst’s account said in a Twitter post. “He was released early this morning. Thank you for the support and concern over the last hours and in the coming weeks as he recovers.”

Since his win in the ARCA season opener at Daytona Int’l Speedway earlier this year, Van Alst has had a long stretch of tough luck. Multiple wrecks led him to scaling back his driver-owner effort in the series. 

Van Alst then joined Alpha Prime Racing, and Young’s where his bad luck has continued. Wrecks and mechanical issues have plagued the Anderson, IN native throughout 2023, no matter who he is driving for, or what series he is competing in.

It is currently unclear the severity of Van Alst’s injury and whether he will be sidelined for any races, or how long he could be sidelined. The next Truck Series race, the Baptist Health 200, is at Homestead-Miami Speedway is scheduled for Friday, October 21.

This story will be updated as more information is released.

Seth Eggert
Seth Eggert
Growing up in Northern New Jersey, Seth grew up in a family of NASCAR fans. He was always determined to have a career in the industry. While in college, Seth bought a subscription to iRacing. As an avid iRacer, Seth took an opportunity to start a journalism career at iRacingNews covering the iRacing.com IndyCar Open Oval Series. He spent four years at iRacingNews before moving towards coverage of motorsports in the real world. In 2016, Seth joined Tribute Racing, which then became Motorsports Tribune as a Staff Writer. That same year, he graduated from Mitchell Community College with an Associate’s Degree in History. He joined the Kickin’ the Tires team as a Staff Writer and eSports Editor in late 2019. When he is not writing or covering NASCAR or iRacing, Seth works at Mitchell Community College as an Administrator in their Mooresville campus tutoring center. He is also qualified to tutor up to 38 different classes ranging from Communications to History to Math to various electives.
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